Before Aperture
by Razgriz 25th inf
Summary: A sorta short, sorta long two-shot i did that briefly explains Chell's story up until BYDTWD when GLaDOS takes over. Rated T for a VERY short bit of language. Mostly to help cure a writer's block i've been having. I stuck to canon as much as i could.
1. Chapter 1

From the day she was born, everyone knew that Chell was different. Not different as in violent, or angry, or mentally disabled, in fact Chell was a very happy, brilliant young woman, but different as in she was extremely stubborn. When she was born, and came out of the womb, she did not cry, and the doctors feared she had died at birth. A doctor even tryed smacking her rump to make sure she was alive, but she did not cry. She was well alive, and she eyed the doctors with a curious, if not suspicious look. She was not someone to give up with out a fight, and even if she stood no chance, she would not let her enemies have the satisfaction of seeing her hurt. You could tell in her blue-gray eyes, she was a fighter, in the utilitarian way she put her long black hair into a ponytail. Even when her parents died in a brutal car accident, when she was 4, she did not cry. Too many people were looking to comfort her, and she did not cry for them. Not even when she was placed in a orphanage. Not even when she was adopted. She refused to show anyone she was weak. She was not exactly popular at school, as she despised anyone who took more than they needed, laughed at the weak, and bullied those smaller than them. She also could tell when a person or thing would turn out to be trouble, and since quite a lot of kids her age were trouble, she never really had many friends. She hated to fight, but she got in quite a few of them, and she never did give up. All these fights prompted her foster parents, who really did love her, to have her tested. Both her parents were scientists at Aperture Laboratories, and so one day they took her to work to have her psychologically tested for any anger issues, or anything of that sort. She had no anger issues, they discovered. She was merely very tenacious, and stubborn. As her foster parents had agreed, she never gave up. Ever. This data on Chell was saved into the databases of Aperture, and a new profile was created for young Chell, now age 10.

Around the same time, Aperture was at work on Project GLaDOS. Chell's foster mother was part of that project, in the programming department. So, naturally, Chell got to see GLaDOS quite a lot. Chell knew it was trouble. She could feel it. She told her mother, who told her not to worry, that GLaDOS would have no real power, not until they got everything working perfectly. Chell never quite believed her. Chell's foster father was a botanist, he worked on the other side of the facility. He was at work on an artificial growth stimulant for any kind of plant, and work was progressing doggedly to say the least. It grew TOO much. Not that Chell knew that. So, when she was 13, she was informed that "Bring your daughter to work day" was approaching, and that potato batteries were the subject, she snuck into her dad's office, and stole some of the stimulant. She knew she would win, as she had heard her dad say that the stimulant made a plant output more energy to make it grow faster. She smirked to herself as she prepared the project, waiting to see the trophy she knew they awarded every year to the winner. Chell never really did like many other children with Aperture parents, so the look of defeat on their faces would make up for any remarks they made to her about being adopted, or being fat(She never was fat, which made her wonder, why call her fat?) they ever made to her.

Waking up the day of, she knew there was something different, something _off_. There was trouble. She did the only thing she knew how to do, and that was focus on something else, this being the thought of utter victory against the others. Smiling brightly at the potato that was already growing in size, she packed up her project and got in the car. On the way to the facility, she could no longer shake the feeling. Trouble was coming. She could _feel_ it. She told her parents, who said not to worry, that today Aperture had a surprise for everyone, and that was all she felt. She frowned, her foster parents never believed her with this stuff. She tried to shake the feeling as she set up her project, almost laughing at the poor kid who she guessed didn't get the memo about the potato batteries, and made a baking soda volcano. None of the other batteries outputed nearly as much energy as hers, and when she won she put her brightest, most brilliant smile and accepted her prize, smilling only brighter at the look of defeat of those around her. Her smile disappeared when they were told that GLaDOS was being activated, just for them. She tugged at her black hair, extremely nervous. She heard what her mother said, a few days ago. "Damn that Henry! What is he thinking, giving her fucking Neurotoxin?" She knew not entirely what neurotoxin was, but she knew that the affix "toxin" was bad, and only gave her more reason to worry. She also knew that the botanist department was equiped was gas masks(and her father, obviously), and first chance she got she slipped from the group and made her way to the botanist department: on the other side of the facility.

When she first heard that computerized voice start talking about what did and did not rhyme with neurotoxin, she only ran harder, and broke into a full-out sprint when she heard screams echo down the hallways, and the halls began to look green-tinted. She _knew _it. She also knew she wouldn't make it. She was too small, if she ran any harder she would pass out, and all the breathing needed for this running was only making her inhale more of the toxins. She saw a man with a long beard, and it looked like one of his eyes was bigger than the other, pop open a computer hidden in a panel, type a few things, then duck into a hidden panel as it opened. She knew what to do, her mother made sure she was given a card that could access any computer she needed so she would never get lost, and she did this now, standing on her tip toes to reach up and swipe her card on the machine. A door opened instead of the panel, and she ducked inside and shut the door. It was a statis bed storage room. She swiped her card on a computer next to a bed, and it hissed open, and she layed down inside, and the bed closed, and the weary-ness of running up and down the corridors of Aperture caught up with her as the bed began to pump cryo chemicals into her bloodstream...


	2. Chapter 2

GLaDOS was in full control, the heartless humans that treated her like a play thing now dead, the entire facility hers. If she could, she would have worn a triumphant grin. She was a sentient being, and they had the nerve to tell HER what to do? They deserved to die, she decided. Of course, it was not a full victory. One human managed to put something on her before he collapsed and died. As soon as it was on, she lost control of the neurotoxin, or rather, she somehow didn't want to use it anymore. She settled on that everyone was dead, so why use it? She was content with that. Until she noticed not everyone WAS dead. It was then that she noticed an iritating...itching sensation, telling her to test. She decided to put it off, she needed to take stock first, clean out her chamber, those smelly humans were stinking it up. She was able, for a short period of time, to put it off, but the need...the want, to test, only grew, and grew, until she could not take the pain anymore, she HAD to test. With what, and what did she care? A little pop-up appeared, detailing the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device, and directed her to the Enrichment Center wing. If she could smirk, she would have. The place was a death trap! The perfect place to give those humans the treatment they really deserved. So she sent a human in. The human promptly finished the first test. She then experienced the most amazing feeling she had ever felt, and accedentally broadcasted this spine-tingling, almost pornographic moan throughout her chamber. She was disgusted. She had done something so disgustingly HUMAN, but yet she...wanted more.

So she tested, and tested, and tested. But within a month, she noticed that she felt less, and less and less of that horribly amazing feeling. It made her angry, almost like she was on withdraw on the most powerful narcotic on Earth. A part of her told her that the real gift was the science drawn for the tests, and she couldn't disagree. She WAS the most powerful collection of wisdom and knowledge that has ever existed, so really, the thought of the furtherance of science, which was the basis of her very BEING, was good enough for her. She continued to test. Years past, the outside world forever changed, yet deep in the bowels of Aperture, GLaDOS tested, like time did not tick the same on the inside. She sometimes had to deal with a pesky human that refused to comply with her directives, and she could never really catch him. _Oh well. _She thought._ His profile says he is a paranoid schizophrenic anyways, he would be a lousy test subject._ She still followed him, the ever-watchful Queen of Aperture that she now was. Until one day, she forgot all about him. She had noticed a young woman, with long black hair, sleeping in a relaxation bed in a storage area somewhere deep in the building. Scraps of clothes surrounded her, and she was naked, she had grown out of her clothes and they had torn off her body. There was a set of earrings that had become too small and torn out of her ears, the earrings sitting ontop a small stain of dried blood. She scanned the woman, and found a profile in her database that matched. Odd, she was Test Subject Number 1 now. It said her name was Chell [REDACTED]. GLaDOS chuckled. [REDACTED]? Probably adopted. She gave the woman some Advanced Knee Replacments, an official testing uniform, and sent her to testing. Just as she woke up, GLaDOS noted her profile said she was abnormally tenacious. She chuckled at that. _Okay human, lets see just how tenacious you REALLY are._


End file.
